ValleyWatch

October 13, 2018 – By Barbra Streisand

October 8, 2018-Now You Know with Zac and Jesse 

On today’s episode of “In Depth” Zac & Jesse talk about the overwhelming support by the public for going 100% renewable, and the what your utility isn’t telling you. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. We have some pledge rewards you may be interested in, so go check that out. Now You Know! #nowyouknow #renewableenergy #tesla

August 13, 2018- by John Blair, valley watch.net editor 

Today, for perhaps the first time ever, the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor came out against a proposal by Vectren Corporation that if approved by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission would ultimately increase electric rates for southwest Indiana residential and commercial electric customers bills by nearly $1 billion.

While Valley Watch has fought for years for reduced usage of coal as an energy source, and was pleased when Vectren announced their intention to retire three coal units in the 2016 Integrated Resource Plan, we have had serious reservations about the sheer size and cost of their proposal build a giant natural gas facility at the AB Brown site in southeast Posey County at a cost to could cause significant economic harm to most of the residential and commercial customers.

Today’s announcement by the OUCC sill surely set in motion a clash between Vectren, Valley Watch Citizen’s Action Coalition and other intervenors as to the future of that plan. 

OUCC Counselor, Bill Fine said in their announcement, “Any electric utility that seeks to overhaul its generation fleet today must evaluate all possible options. It must also carefully examine the ways its options would impact its customers in terms of both money and electric reliability. In this case Vectren has not evaluated all options or shown that that it is proceeding on the most prudent manner.”

Source: Citizens Action Coalition

Earlier today, in a release sent out by the consumer watchdog, Citizens Action Coalition, Valley Watch president, John Blair asserted, “It is time for the IURC to finally step up, say no to Vectren, and deny this nearly one billion-dollar ratepayer rip-off. Vectren residential customers already pay the highest rates in Indiana. Ratepayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize alleged Vectren growth in the industrial sector. Why should residential customers subsidize industrial customers at all?”

Valley Watch, whose purpose is to “protect the public health and environment of the lower Ohio River Valley, is committed to fair, just rates for clean, safe energy. Currently, southwest Indiana and western Kentucky  is home to nearly 15,000 megawatts off coal fired electric generating capacity that for decades has impacted the health of citizens of the region in very negative ways. All but around 4,000 of those megawatts are sent out of the region and that 4,000 serves to run the enormous electric needs of three of the USA’s remaining eight aluminum smelters.

Alcoa Warrick Operations is the largest aluminum smelter in the US. It emitted more than 4 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the SW Indiana environment in 2009. © 2011 John Blair

Air pollution, water pollution and land pollution from these giant facilities permeate our environment and will have negative impacts for the region for years after they cease operation.

May 31, 2018 – By Jennifer Dlouhy in Bloomberg News 

AEP’s Rockport power plant has become uneconomic to operate of late but since it uses coal, a plan by the Energy Department is designed to use a World War 2 era regulation to make sure that it keeps operating even if it requires higher rates for customers just so Trump can keep his campaign promise to revive the coal industry. Photo © 2003 BlairPhotoEVV.

Trump administration officials are making plans to order grid operators to buy electricity from struggling coal and nuclear plants in an effort to extend their life, a move that could represent an unprecedented intervention into U.S. energy markets.

The Energy Department would exercise emergency authority under a pair of federal laws to direct the operators to purchase electricity or electric generation capacity from at-risk facilities, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The agency also is making plans to establish a “Strategic Electric Generation Reserve” with the aim of promoting the national defense and maximizing domestic energy supplies.

[Read the memo here]

“Federal action is necessary to stop the further premature retirements of fuel-secure generation capacity,” says a 41-page draft memo circulated before a National Security Council meeting on the subject Friday.

The plan cuts to the heart of a debate over the reliability and resiliency of a rapidly evolving U.S. electricity grid. Nuclear and coal-fired power plants are struggling to compete against cheap natural gas and renewable electricity. As nuclear and coal plants are decommissioned, regulators have been grappling with how to ensure that the nation’s power system can withstand extreme weather events and cyber-attacks

Although the memo describes a planned Energy Department directive, there was no indication President Donald Trump had signed off on the action nor when any order might be issued. The document, dated May 29 and distributed Thursday, is marked as a “draft,” which is “not for further distribution,” and could be used by administration officials to justify the intervention.

While administration officials are still deciding on their final strategy — and may yet decide against aggressive action — the memo represents the Energy Department’s latest, most fully developed plan to intervene on behalf of coal and nuclear power plants, pitched to the president’s top security advisers.

Energy Department representatives did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Always-On

Trump administration officials who advocate taking action say they want to preserve nuclear and coal-fired plants that have fuel on site and provide reliable, always-on power capable of snapping back after intense storms and emergencies.

“Too many of these fuel-secure plants have retired prematurely and many more have recently announced retirement,” only to be replaced by less-secure, less-resilient natural gas and renewable power sources, the memo said.

Over dozens of pages, the memo makes the case for action, arguing that the decommissioning of power plants must be managed for national security reasons and that federal intervention is necessary before the U.S. reaches a tipping point in the loss of essential, secure electric generation resources. U.S. Defense Department installations are 99 percent dependent on the commercial power grid, one reason that electric system reliability is vitally important to national defense and homeland security, the memo asserts.

For two years, the Energy Department would direct the purchase of power or electric generation capacity from a designated list of facilities “to forestall any future actions toward retirement, decommissioning or deactivation,” according to the memo. The proposed Energy Department directive also would tell some of those facilities to continue generating and delivering electric power according to their existing or recent contracts with utilities. Continue reading →

May 25, 2018 – by Jeffrey Tomich, E&E News. Editors note: Valley Watch, along with the Citizens Action Coalition, Save the Valley and the Hoosier Environmental Council, collaborating as the Indiana Clean Energy campaign worked tirelessly in the early years of this century to shut down the Clifty Creek facility that sits on the western edge of Madison, IN. We knew they were going to have to place controls for both Nitrogen Oxides and Sulfur Dioxide which would cost billions and it was our position then that this was money being wasted. But because  all the owners, Including Vectren and Duke had their hands in ratepayer pockets, both Democrat and Republican Administrations in Indiana allowed them to go forth. This story shows how our predictions were, once again, correct. 

When FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. sought bankruptcy protection this spring, included in the avalanche of legal filings was a motion to exit a partnership that runs a pair of 1950s-era coal plants on the Ohio River.

Clifty Creek power plant sits adjacent to Clifty Falls State Park, just outside Madison, IN. It serves no current useful purpose except to keep rates its owners charge higher than they need to be. File Photo © 2009 BlairPhotoEVV

The reason was clear: The 1,304-megawatt Clifty Creek plant in Indiana and the 1,086-MW Kyger Creek plant in Ohio are bleeding red ink and are a barrier to the financial turnaround of FES. Backing the plea was analysis from an expert, ICF International Inc. Managing Director Judah Rose, who forecast the company’s tiny stake in the venture would produce a $268 million loss over the life of an agreement to keep the plants running.A year earlier, Duke Energy Ohio submitted very different testimony concerning the same coal plants in another proceeding, this one before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

In that case, Duke asked regulators to require the utility’s 700,000 electric customers in southwest Ohio to subsidize the plants on the basis that they provided a hedge against volatile, rising natural gas prices.

Backing up Duke’s request was testimony from an industry expert: ICF’s Judah Rose.

How can two companies tell a federal judge that the 60-year-old coal plants are a financial albatross and simultaneously argue to utility regulators that the plants are a good investment for consumers? And rely on the work of the same consultant? The answer depends on who’s paying the bill.

Unlike industries vulnerable to disruptors such as Amazon.com Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc., electric utilities — even those in deregulated markets like Ohio — continue to press lawmakers and regulators to shield them from competition. And they’re doing so by playing on fears that letting plants shut down will lead to a shortage that will result in a price shock — or, worse yet, the lights going out.

Ezra Hausman, an electric industry consultant who has analyzed the plants’ economics, has a simpler explanation.

“They made a bad bet and they don’t want to live with the consequences,” said Hausman, a former vice president at Synapse Energy Economics Inc., who prepared a report on the plants for the Sierra Club last year.

So far, two Ohio utilities, American Electric Power Co.’s Ohio utility and Dayton Power and Light Co., have gotten approval from Ohio regulators to subsidize the plants in the name of stabilizing consumer rates until at least 2024.

Those decisions are being appealed. The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel is challenging the AEP order at the Ohio Supreme Court, and environmental groups have asked PUCO to reopen the Dayton Power and Light case. The Duke request is still pending.

Other disputes involving the same troubled plants are playing out before the Ohio Legislature and state Supreme Court, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the U.S. bankruptcy court.

Meanwhile, the group of seven Midwest utilities and electric cooperatives say they are contractually bound to run the money-losing plants for another two decades, until 2040, when each will be 85 years old.

Patriotic origin

The two plants weren’t always controversial. In fact, they were built to support the federal government during the Cold War — a bit of history that utilities continue to play up a half-century later.

The plants are operated by a utility consortium known as OVEC, or the Ohio Valley Electric Corp. The group includes a handful of investor-owned utilities as well as two generating and transmission cooperatives.

The companies run the plants according to terms of an intercompany power agreement, under which each “sponsor” company shares in the plants’ output and costs according to their ownership interest. The largest owner is Columbus-based AEP, which has about 40 percent interest through three utilities.

OVEC was founded in the early 1950s to supply power to the Atomic Energy Commission’s uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio. For 50 years, they quietly served that purpose until the plant closed and the contract with the AEC’s successor agency, the Department of Energy, ended in 2003.

The end of the relationship included a $97.5 million “termination payment” by DOE to OVEC to cover uncollected post-retirement and plant closure costs. Continue reading →

May 23, 2018 – Peter Finch in the MGM movie Network, 1976

42 years after the movie Network ran in theaters across America, we are now living its reality. Just watch and see how prophetic this movie was.

May 22, 2018 – by Ryan Van Velzer, WFPL-Lousiville.

Henderson Plant 2 is part of this complex on the Green River near Sebree, KY. In the background you can see the Alcoa and  Vectren’s Culley power plants.  File Photo © 2011 BlairPhotoEVV

Henderson, Kentucky’s coal-fired power plant provided among the lowest electricity rates in the country for its residents just two years ago, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

But the country’s energy grid is undergoing a transformation and market forces are pushing older coal-fired power plants like Henderson’s into retirement, while alternatives like wind, solar and natural gas are taking its place.

For most of the last 50 years, Henderson — a small city on the Ohio River — has run on coal power. The coal is locally sourced: all of it comes from Western Kentucky coal fields from within a 30 miles radius, said Henderson Mayor Steve Austin.

“I grew up within a few blocks of the power plant. Plus, we had a coal burning furnace in the apartment house that we lived in and when you’d go out to your car it would have coal dust all over it,” Austin said. “It would blow off once you drove, but the coal dust was every place in the downtown area.”

The coal is burning a lot cleaner these days, but it’s not burning as often. In the last six months, Henderson began purchasing most its electricity on the open market, only turning on the plant generators when necessary, said Austin.

The city is kind of unique in that it owns its own power plant, Station Two, which went online in the early 1970s. Historically, it’s provided some of the cheapest electricity in the state.

The city pays the power company Big Rivers to operate Station Two. But earlier this month, Big Rivers cut its contract with the city, saying it was no longer profitable for it to keep running the plant.

Henderson historically has taken its cut of the power for the city and left Big Rivers to sell the rest on the open market. But right now, it costs about 33 times more to produce energy from Station Two than it does to buy it on the open market.

Big Rivers spokeswoman Jennifer Keach said the power company was running at a loss for several years, so it did a study that found “Station Two units are no longer capable of normal, continuous reliable operation for the economically competitive production of electricity.”

Now, Henderson has to decide whether it wants to continue running the plant without Big Rivers, or just close it down all together.

Coal Power In Decline 

All across the country, older coal-fired power plants are retiring. Continue reading →

March 27, 2018 – by Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis – Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual maximum extent on March 17. This is the second lowest Arctic maximum in the 39-year satellite record. The four lowest maximum extents in the satellite record have all occurred in the past four years. NSIDC will post a detailed analysis of the 2017 to 2018 winter sea ice conditions in our regular monthly post in early April.

Overview of conditions

On March 17, 2018, Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.48 million square kilometers (5.59 million square miles), the second lowest in the 39-year satellite record, falling just behind 2017. This year’s maximum extent is 1.16 million square kilometers (448,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average maximum of 15.64 million square kilometers (6.04 million square miles).

The four lowest seasonal maxima have all occurred during the last four years. The 2018 maximum is 60,000 square kilometers (23,200 square miles) above the record low maximum that occurred on March 7, 2017; 40,000 square kilometers (15,400 square miles) below the 2015 and 2016 maxima (now tied for third lowest); and is 190,000 square kilometers (73,400 square miles) below the 2011 maximum, which is now fifth lowest.

In March 2017, we reported a new record maximum being set, with 2016 sliding to the second lowest, and 2015 the third lowest. In November 2017, we updated our calculation of the monthly average sea ice extent in the NSIDC Sea Ice Index, resulting in 2016 tying with 2015.

The date of the maximum this year, March 17, was five days later than normal compared to the 1981 to 2010 median date of March 12. Continue reading →

March 20, 2018- Undercover with Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. An undercover investigation by Channel 4 News reveals how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses were filmed talking about using bribes, ex-spies, fake IDs and sex workers. This two part video explains the nefarious underworld of politics in the USA and elsewhere.